Implementation of an Integrated Computer System for the State Court System 2004-104aavlong

8/8/2019 Implementation of an Integrated Computer System for the State Court System 2004-104aavlong

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December 2003

Prepared for

The Florida Senate

Prepared by

Committee on Appropriations

Implementation of anIntegrated Computer System for the State

Court System Report Number 2004-104



Table of Contents

Summary separate documentBackground ...................................................................................................................................................1 Methodology..................................................................................................................................................2 Findings.........................................................................................................................................................3

Diversity of IT Systems..............................................................................................................................3

Availability of Technology Tools .......................................................................................................3 Diversity of Hardware and Software Applications..............................................................................4 Funding, Ownership, and Control of IT Systems................................................................................6

Judicial Circuit Data Sharing and Integration ............................................................................................8 State Level Data Sharing and Integration.................................................................................................11 Obstacles to Integration............................................................................................................................13 General Recommendations of Local IT Personnel ...................................................................................14

Conclusions and Recommendations ............................................................................................................15 Appendixes..................................................................................................................................................18 Appendix A – 17th Circuit/Broward County Site Visit ................................................................................19 Appendix B – 11th Circuit/Miami-Dade Site Visit.......................................................................................23 Appendix C – 13th Circuit/Hillsborough County Site Visit .........................................................................27 Appendix D – 9

thCircuit/Orange County Site Visit ....................................................................................31

Appendix E – Glossary of Selected IT Terms .............................................................................................35

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Implementation of an Integrated Computer System for the State Court System

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BackgroundThe 1968 rewrite of the Florida constitution culminated in 1972 with a major

revision to Article V of the Florida Constitution, which provided for theorganization and jurisdiction of the courts, the state attorneys, and the publicdefenders. This 1972 revision created Florida’s current day uniform system of

courts following rules of procedure with statewide application. This was the first

restructuring of the Florida courts since 1885.

In 1998, the Constitution Revision Commission proposed, and the voters adopted,

Revision 7 to Article V. This 1998 revision specified in broad terms the state andcounty funding responsibilities for the state court system, and set a deadline of July 1, 2004 for the state to fully fund its’ share of the court system. Essentially,

the state is to pay for all costs associated with the state courts system, state

attorneys’ offices, public defenders offices, and court-appointed counsel except

for certain enumerated county obligations. The counties are to pay for “the cost of communications services, existing radio systems, existing multi-agency criminal

justice information systems, and the cost of construction or lease, maintenance,utilities, and security of facilities for the trial courts, public defenders’ offices,

state attorneys’ offices and the offices of the clerks of the circuit and county courts performing court-related functions. Counties shall also pay reasonable and

necessary salaries, costs, and expenses of the state courts system to meet local

requirements as determined by general law.” (Article V Section 14 (c) of Florida’s

Constitution)

In order to implement Revision 7 to Article 5 of the Florida Constitution, the

Legislature enacted Chapter 2000-237, Laws of Florida, to specify the elements of the state court system and the responsibilities of the state and counties in

providing such elements. Section 29.008, Florida Statutes (F.S.), further defines

the responsibility of counties to fund communications services. Communications

services include all computer systems and equipment, maintenance, support staff and services necessary for an integrated computer system to support the operationsand management of the state court system, including the state attorneys, public

defenders, and clerks of the court. The computer systems must enable the entities

in the state courts system to share and report information relating to revenues, performance accountability, case management, data collection, budgeting, and

auditing functions.

The 2003 legislature passed House Bill 113A (Chapter 2003-402, Laws of Florida) which further clarified the state and county responsibilities. HB 113A

amended section 29.008, F.S., to require the integrated computer system to enable

the electronic exchange of case information, sentencing guidelines and score

sheets, and video evidence stored in integrated case-management systems over secure networks. Further, the bill required the integrated system to be operational

by January 1, 2006.




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Since enactment of the amendments to section 29.008, F.S., representatives fromthe various court system entities have questioned what would constitute an

“integrated system” under the law, how such a system would be implemented, and

what their obligations and responsibilities would be.

This interim project was undertaken to develop a general understanding and

description of the current systems and equipment that provide informationtechnology services for the state courts system, and to identify issues that mayneed to be addressed by the legislature to facilitate development and

implementation of an integrated information system for the state courts system by

January 1, 2006.

Methodology Staff held several meetings with information technology representatives in the

Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA), and with the FloridaAssociation of Court Clerks and Comptrollers, Inc. (FACC) to obtain information

on statewide systems and applications and to understand the initiatives developed by both those groups. Staff met with representatives of the clerk of the court, the

court administrator, the state attorney, and the public defender in several judicial

circuits to gain an understanding of their technology, the degree of integration

currently existing, and their recommendations on integration. Site visits weremade to the 17th judicial circuit (Broward County), the 11th judicial circuit(Miami-Dade), the 13th judicial circuit (Hillsborough County), and the 9 th judicial

circuit (Orange and Osceola counties). Representatives of the respective countyalso attended and participated in most of the site visit interviews. See attached

appendices for summaries of the site visits. In addition, several exploratory

meetings were held with representatives from the 2nd judicial circuit (Leon,

Jefferson, Gadsden, Liberty, Wakulla, and Franklin counties) prior to conductingthe other site visits. Staff reviewed recent reports relating to the implementationof Revision 7 developed for the legislature by MGT America, Inc., and conducted

internet searches for information on integrating court systems in other states. Also

participating in this project were staff from the Office of the Auditor General,Information Technology Division, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and

Government Accountability (OPPAGA), and the Senate Judiciary Committee.




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FindingsDiversity of IT SystemsIt has been generally understood by judicial system participants, and confirmed inmore detail by this project, that the information technology (IT) infrastructure and

organization in Florida’s judicial system is very diverse in at least three major

ways. An understanding of this diversity is essential to formulating goals andstrategies for integrating information technology.

Availability of Technology ToolsThe availability of efficient technological tools varies significantly from county to

county and circuit to circuit. Many circuits manually process the same data that

other circuits process with technology. Only 24 percent of Florida judges are able

to access information electronically from the courtroom.1

Some state attorneys arecompleting sentencing scoresheets manually with data received from FDLE

criminal history records, while some state attorneys have purchased automatedapplications to generate the scoresheets (e.g., 9

thcircuit). Although some judges

use paperless automated systems in the courtroom to process cases (e.g., the 11th

circuit/Miami-Dade SPIRIT traffic system), most court functions are still

conducted with paper files due to lack of technology.

Various other technologies are in use in some circuits. Video conferencing is

being used for first appearance hearings and arraignments in several jurisdictions,

where defendants participate from the county jail. The 9th

circuit state attorney

maintains a video evidence system for various cases such as driving under theinfluence. Digital court reporting is perhaps exemplified in the 9th circuit/Orange

County courtrooms, where one centrally located reporter can simultaneously cover

four courtrooms. In contrast, many jurisdictions have few or none of thesetechnology tools. These examples illustrate the variability of IT use among

different entities in the courts system.

The degree to which existing technology systems are outdated varies as well.

Seventy two percent of the court environments use technology that is nearingobsolescence.1 The courts in a number of Florida counties are using personalcomputers (PC’s) and servers considered by the OSCA to be below current

standards (e.g., below 450 megahertz). The OSCA technology survey conducted

within the last year shows that court employees in 11 counties have no PC’s thatmeet standards, and 49 counties have a mix of PC’s that meet or do not meet

1See the courts’ Judicial Information Strategic Plan, October 30, 2002, page 16.




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standards. Across all 67 counties, approximately 53 percent of all the PC’s in useare considered below standards. The same survey shows that in 35 counties 104computer servers do not meet standards, and 266 network hubs need to be

replaced. A rough estimate of the cost to replace all outdated PC’s, servers, and

network hubs serving the court statewide is $7.5 million. Although comparable

statewide survey data for other court system entities has not been obtained for thisstudy, observations from the site visits support the presumption that the same mix

of current versus outdated technology exists in all the court system entitiesstatewide.

Many circuits still use older mainframe programming technologies developed

several decades ago (e.g. 17th circuit/Broward County and 11th circuit/Miami-

Dade). These mainframe applications are not user friendly. They limit display onthe “green screens” to only characters and numbers. Green screens often

consolidate data in formats that may be difficult to navigate and require the use of the keyboard for input rather than a mouse to execute program functions or to

move between different application screens. Current mainframe applicationscommonly use Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) which generally provide more

user friendly screens using point and click options to execute functions or to move

between screens, while the old mainframe application still executes in the background. Larger circuits with systems that are integrated to some extent arenevertheless operating on legacy mainframe equipment, sometimes usingapplications that have been extensively modified through the years and are no

longer supported by vendors (e.g., 17th

circuit/Broward County). Some of these

mainframe systems may also lose support as counties move county relatedapplications off these mainframes to a web based distributed computing

environment.

Diversity of Hardware and Software ApplicationsThose processes and data that are automated use a wide range of differenthardware and software solutions across counties and circuits. Many applications

have been developed in-house using county or court system entity programmers,

and other applications have been purchased from various vendors as off-the-shelf

solutions. Many of the off-the-shelf solutions have also been customized tovarying extents.

From the clerk of courts point of view, court information technology systems can

be grouped into a minimum of 6 major functions: criminal, civil, probate, juvenile, jury, and traffic. The FACC has developed a number of computer

applications for use by the clerks of the court. These include the:

• Clerk of Court Child Support Collection System (CLERC);

• Offender Based Transaction System (OBTS; criminal application

developed in conjunction with the Florida Department of LawEnforcement);




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• Comprehensive Case Management System (CCMS; suite of applications

including civil, probate, traffic, juvenile, juror/witness, indexing and

recording applications);

• Traffic Citation Accounting and Transmission System (TCATS;

developed in conjunction with the Department of Highway Safety andMotor Vehicles); and

• Comprehensive Case Information System (CCIS; designed to providestatewide access to court information).

Although these applications are uniformly available to all clerks of court,

many other applications have been developed by clerks’ in-house

programmers or by private vendors for each of these major functions.

Exhibit 1 shows the number of clerks that use the various applicationsdeveloped by the FACC as opposed to in-house or vendor applications, as

reported recently by the FACC.

Exhibit 1: Major Applications Used by the 67 Clerks

Type of CaseUse FACCApplication

Use In-HouseApplication

Use Vendor Application

Criminal 36 clerks 12 clerks 19 clerks

Civil 28 clerks 9 clerks 30 clerks

Probate 27 clerks 12 clerks 28 clerks

Juvenile 29 clerks 13 clerks 25 clerks

Traffic 27 clerks 12 clerks 28 clerks

Jury 33 clerks 11 clerks 21 clerks

In general, smaller county clerks are more likely to use the FACC applications,

while larger circuits are more likely to develop their own systems either in-house

or with the help of a private vendor.

With regard to the operations of the 20 circuit court administrators there are at

least 139 different versions of court applications in the 20 circuits/67 counties.2

Court administrators use systems operated by other entities as well as manyapplications developed in-house or with the assistance of private vendors.

State attorneys and public defenders also use different applications, but manyhave adopted a common case management system called STAC, developed by a

private vendor, CIP, in Jacksonville. Currently 11 of the 20 state attorney offices

use STAC, and 9 of the 20 public defender offices use STAC. The others use

either proprietary or in-house applications to manage their work processes. Those

that use STAC have in some cases customized STAC to their business processes,

2Ibid.




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through programming contracts with the private vendor, as other entities havedone routinely with their applications. For example, the clerk in HillsboroughCounty indicated that, prior to customization, his off-the-shelf system met only

40% of the clerk’s functional requirements. Hence, even though two state

attorney offices may use STAC or two other court system entities may use the

same proprietary application, their systems may still be somewhat different.

During the site visits conducted for this project, it was seen that each court systementity operates numerous unique computer applications, some shared with other entities, and many developed on an ad hoc basis and used only internally.

Funding, Ownership, and Control of IT SystemsThe source of funding, ownership and control of technology across jurisdictions

are also diverse and complicated. Although counties have funded and maintained

much of the technology infrastructure, one or more of the entities in various jurisdictions may also own and control some or all of their IT infrastructureindependently. This is one of the more significant observations gained from the

selected site visits. In some jurisdictions the county owns most of the equipment,

computer hardware and software applications that are used by the sheriff, the clerk

of the court, the judges and court administrator’s staff, the state attorney, and the public defender. In other jurisdictions the county owns equipment and computer

hardware that is used, but each entity uses that equipment to run its own softwareapplications. In yet other circuits, each entity owns and controls all the equipmentand the software used, but may use a network provided by the county to share data

with other entities. There are jurisdictions where all of the foregoing scenarios

can be found, depending upon which entity is considered. The sheriff and clerk may use a county system while the courts and state attorney use their own

hardware and applications.

While all the above scenarios exist in general, the complexity is much greater when viewed by type of court case. In most Florida jurisdictions, as stated earlier,

court information technology systems can be grouped into a minimum of 6 major

functions: criminal, civil, probate, juvenile, jury, and traffic. The diversity of

ownership/control of hardware and software is such that two or more of thedifferent scenarios described in the paragraph above may exist within one entity

depending on which of the major type of court case/IT group is considered. For example, according to survey data collected by the FACC for this study, in

Alachua county the clerk owns the systems for criminal, probate, juvenile andcivil, but the county owns the systems for traffic and jury management. This split

ownership of systems is also true for various clerks’ systems in Broward, Dade,

Duval, Leon, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco, Polk, Putnam, St. Lucie, and Volusia

counties. In many instances the court system entities use a mix of ITinfrastructure owned and controlled by other entities as well as equipment andnumerous applications owned and developed in-house or purchased from private




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vendors, depending on which program or type of court case is considered. Thisdiversity of ownership and control of data and systems may be one of the moredifficult factors to accommodate in formulating integration strategies.

Funding for IT staff support is yet another significant difference within and across

circuits. The court administrator’s office may have in-house IT staff that programand maintain case management systems owned by the court, but the county may

provide the funds for those staff, such as is the case in the 17 th circuit/BrowardCounty. The state attorney in the 17th circuit/Broward County also has in-houseIT staff, but they are state funded. In some cases, county employees in county

offices provide IT programming and assistance as needed to each entity, and the

entity pays the county for such services, even though the county pays directly for

the ongoing use and maintenance of the system (e.g., 11th

circuit/Miami-Dade).This variation in support staffing is significant both across the entities within one

jurisdiction and across jurisdictions. Many entities in the selected circuits visitedreceive funds directly from the county to fund IT support staff, and many others

do not receive any county funding. In addition, counties vary in their ability todocument indirect costs to support court related IT efforts.

Another finding from the site visits is that the business processes upon which ITsystems are based vary considerably across jurisdictions. This is to be expectedwhen many of the stakeholders in the judicial system are constitutional officerswho are elected by their respective communities and who set their own priorities.

Chief judges also have wide latitude in organizing their respective court processes

and procedures. Judges in different jurisdictions have established differentrequirements for court operations and case management, and their IT systems

reflect those different requirements. State attorneys and public defenders vary

greatly in the procedures they have developed to review and process their cases,and their case management systems have also been structured around those unique

processes. Clerks of court likewise operate as they deem best and structure their

IT systems to suit their unique procedures.

Each entity in the judicial system may have developed or adapted IT systems not

only to suit the unique ways they operate internally, but also to meet the different

obligations they may have as part of the judicial enterprise in that jurisdiction.For example, in the 13th circuit/Hillsborough County and the 17th circuit/BrowardCounty the clerk is responsible for scheduling court hearings for criminal,

juvenile, and civil cases, whereas in the 9 th circuit/Orange County and in the 11 th

circuit/Miami-Dade it is the court administrator who creates the court calendar.

In many jurisdictions the state attorney maintains the statute table used for charging defendants, but in Broward County the sheriff maintains the statute table

in the criminal case IT system, even though the state attorney may use a differentcode in the court filing documents. In some circuits the state attorney enters

disposition data into the case record, and in other jurisdictions the clerk enters




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disposition data. It is an important finding that some data elements that arecommon in all jurisdictions may not be the responsibility of the same court systementity across all jurisdictions, and hence may be managed by different court

system entity IT systems.

Judicial Circuit Data Sharing and IntegrationThe degree of information sharing and level of IT integration varies significantly

between judicial circuits. Generally, more progress has been made to integrate

data and systems for criminal cases than civil cases. Throughout all of the sitevisits, almost every conceivable method of getting data from one system intoanother system was documented. The 11th circuit/Miami-Dade courts use

electronic file transfers between their systems and CJIS, while the 11th

circuit/Miami-Dade public defender uses a less efficient method referred to as

“screen scraping.”3

Some court administrators are populating their in-house casemanagement applications by manually reentering all data from hard-copy case

folders received from the clerk (e.g., 9 th circuit/Orange County), while some areimporting data electronically from the clerk’s system to the courts case

management system (e.g., 17th

circuit/Broward court administrator). Others are

simply accessing the clerk’s system directly for their judicial case managementneeds without transferring or reentering data into another system or application

(e.g., 13th

circuit/Hillsborough court administrator). This same variety of manual

and electronic data sharing also occurs with state attorneys and public defenders.Typically, if some data is transferred electronically to an entity, there is still muchother data being obtained manually by that entity as well. While the 11th

circuit/Miami-Dade state attorney is able to electronically obtain data for felony

and juvenile cases from the CJIS, all other data is still manually reentered.

There are two broad models of IT integration exemplified by the 11th

circuit/Miami-Dade and the 9th

circuit/Orange County. In the 11th

circuit/Miami-Dade, the court system entities share county-owned and maintained mainframesystems. All entities have shared ownership of an application but individual

entities maintain control over certain data and operations of the application. Local

law enforcement agencies enter booking data and create a case, the clerk prepares

case files for that case, the state attorney enters charging information, witnessdata, and so forth, all using the same system. The Miami-Dade Criminal Justice

Information System (CJIS) began operations in 1992 after 7 years of planning andstudy. According to Miami-Dade IT staff, CJIS is currently used for 23 major functions and interfaces with over 150 local, state, and national entities. Yet, as

3 Screen scraping essentially is when a computer program literally reads the datadisplayed on a computer screen that has only inquiry access to the CJIS. Thus the data isnot really “transferred” between the two systems, but rather is obtained by the publicdefender’s system without any special program execution on the part of the CJIS system.Other court system entities use screen scraping also.




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integrated as the Miami-Dade systems may be, each of the court system entitiesstill requires many additional IT applications and hardware devices to operateeffectively. For example, the 11th circuit court administrator’s office created a

separate data warehouse that uses information electronically transferred from the

CJIS for case management functions. In fact, it was stated that each of the court

system entities has created its own unique database using CJIS data. (The same istrue for the 13th circuit/Hillsborough County entities.) The 11th circuit state

attorney, for example, uses real time data transfers between CJIS and the stateattorney case management system known as HYDRA, developed in-house for felony and juvenile cases.

The other broad model of integration, demonstrated by the proposed 9th

circuit/Orange County Integrated Criminal Justice Information System (ICJIS), iscurrently in development and phased implementation. Begun in 2002, this project

will link the automated data for all Orange County court system entities as well asstate agency databases using a master information hub funded and maintained by

Orange County. This approach allows all existing IT hardware and softwaresystems to remain in place, and uses “middleware” programming to link the

various systems through the central hub. The hub server will not contain any data

as would a data warehouse, but instead will locate the data requested from theappropriate court entity database and make it available to a user in another entity.This project, estimated to require $8 million in county funds and 3 to 5 years toimplement, has been discussed at the national level as one model for court system

integration. Concurrent with this multi-entity project, integration of systems

within the Orange County clerk of court has been achieved during the last twoyears, creating a single database and application for felony, misdemeanor, civil,

probate, and mental health cases.

In the 17th circuit/Broward County, an interagency data exchange project is beingimplemented at this writing to integrate the data from systems used by the clerk of

court, court administrator, state attorney, public defender, county offices and

sheriff. Known as the BREX system, it will be used to provide File Transfer Protocol (FTP) data exchanges between the court system entities and a central

database on a nightly basis. As in the 9 th circuit, the planned phase B of

BREX incorporates middleware programming to link the various systems througha central Oracle database server. The middleware allows real-time bi-directionaltransfers of data between the entities and the BREX database server. Both phases

allow all existing IT hardware and software systems to remain in place. The flow

of data electronically once BREX is implemented should significantly improve the

operations of each entity. For example, the 17th

circuit public defender currentlyreceives all information from the clerk of court and the state attorney manually in

paper files and enters the data into his STAC case management system. Under BREX, the public defender will be able to load the needed information into his

case management system electronically without manual data reentry.




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Both the 9th circuit/Orange County and the 17th circuit/Broward County illustratethe point that there are major efforts underway throughout the state to integrate

court system IT, involving significant investments of planning and funding. In

addition, many entities have been integrating their internal systems in various

ways and to varying extents, such as the clerk of the court in Orange County.Plans are also underway to improve the civil information technology system in the

11th circuit/Miami-Dade County. The Miami-Dade court and the clerk arecurrently redesigning internal business processes for civil cases. They expect todevelop a new case management system over the next 2 years that is expected to

be paperless. These local initiatives should be recognized when formulating

strategies to further integrate court systems statewide. Strategies that do not allow

for current plans and investments to continue may prove not only costly butextremely disruptive to court entity and system operations.

Communications network infrastructure in the circuits also varies. Court system

entities often use a network provided and maintained by the county, such as in the2nd circuit/Leon County and in the 11 th circuit/Miami-Dade. Yet, in the 17th

circuit/Broward County each entity provides and maintains its own network lines

running throughout the same courthouse facility. In the 9th

circuit/Orange County,the court administrator’s office operates as an independent internet service

provider, whereas other circuit courts use either county networks or the state courtnetwork for internet access. According to data compiled by the Office of the State

Courts Administrator (OSCA) in the Circuit Infrastructure Survey for FY 2002-

03, 13 judicial circuits have use of a wide area network and 7 circuits do not (the1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, 12th, 14th, and 18th circuits do not have a WAN). It is important to

note that circuits that haven't made significant local network upgrades in the past

five or more years could be unable to run next-generation converged applications,such as IP telephony, integrated instant messaging, and video including videoevidence.

With regard to statewide communications infrastructure available for systementities, connections ranged from statewide high speed network connections in

larger circuits to dial-up modems in some smaller circuits. This divergence of

network connections could impede the creation of certain integration solutionssuch as a real time statewide data mart which requires always-on securedcommunications channels from all circuits. Certain statewide network initiatives,

such as the State Technology Office’s MyFloridaNet, may provide solutions to

this challenge. The OSCA provides network access to the Supreme Court, the

appellate courts, and to the 20 circuit court seats. The courts in the 47 countiesthat are not the circuit court seat have no statewide access to the court system.

The FACC maintains a secure frame relay network providing access for all 67clerks of the court and which is used for the child support enforcement program,

traffic citation reporting, and other state reporting.




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State Level Data Sharing and IntegrationAt the state level, there is no integrated system in existence that impacts the day to

day operations of the court system entities. There are, however, current state level

efforts to share data that include the state courts Summary Reporting System(SRS), the Offender Based Transaction System (OBTS), and the FACC’s

Comprehensive Case Information System (CCIS).

The state courts SRS, required by section 25.075, F.S., compiles case counts andcase disposition data from all jurisdictions for use in measuring judicial workload,

providing a general representation of court activity. These are summary numbers

submitted by each of the 67 clerks of the court on a monthly basis, some usingelectronic data transfers and some providing manual paper forms.

The OBTS provides standardized reporting of criminal case filing information tothe courts’ SRS system, and, once a case is disposed, the case information is alsosent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) for inclusion in the

crime information system required in section 943.05, F.S.. The OBTS criminal

history data maintained by the FDLE is accessed by state attorneys and law

enforcement agencies routinely. All clerks of the court submit this data usingcomputer applications or manual methods of their choosing, but they must submit

the data to the courts and FDLE according to a uniform data element dictionary.According to OSCA staff, 52 counties use some electronic submission of OBTSdata that can be loaded into the courts system directly. Twelve counties have

electronic systems that are not yet able to transfer the data into the courts system

directly, therefore paper submissions are made. Three counties are able to submit

only paper reports.

The FACC’s CCIS would provide for a single query for court case informationstatewide through a secure internet portal. This is one system that could impact

the day to day operations of the courts if implemented statewide. Currently piloted in the 14th judicial circuit (Bay, Calhoun, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, and

Washington counties), the type of court data that would be made available

statewide using this system would include criminal, civil, juvenile, traffic, probate, official records, and child support case data. A statewide data warehousewould be created using nightly extracts from the 67 clerks’ systems, and this datawarehouse would be accessed by judges, court staff, clerk of court staff, and other

authorized users. During the 2003 legislative session, the FACC demonstrated

this system and indicated that the system could be implemented statewide for $8million. Implementation is planned soon for the 8th judicial circuit (Alachua,

Baker, Bradford, Gilchrist, Levy, and Union counties) in coordination with the

Department of Children and Family Services. If implemented statewide, thissystem would not require major changes to local systems or procedures, leavingintact local IT infrastructure. However, questions raised recently include whether




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this system alone could meet all the needs of judges and other court systementities. Some representatives of the courts have estimated that 80% of theinformation judges need is actually maintained by state and local agencies other

than the clerks of the court, such as the departments of Children and Families,

Corrections, Juvenile Justice, Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and Law

Enforcement. Funding of $3.3 million to create a system that could integrate thedata from these and other state agencies was provided in the State Fiscal Year

2002-2003 General Appropriations Act (Chapter 2002-394, Laws of Florida;Specific Appropriation 3157A). This integrated justice information project,known as the Secure Access to Florida’s Enterprise Resources (SAFER) project,

was jointly developed by the state courts and the State Technology Office, and

was designed to provide judges access to state agencies’ records via court

computers. A contract was executed in April, 2003 with private vendors toimplement the project, but the funding was rescinded in the State Fiscal Year

2003-2004 General Appropriations Act (Chapter 2003-397, Laws of Florida;section 42) as part of the reductions/fund transfers required to balance the state

budget.

A significant state level effort directed toward integration is the Trial Courts

Needs Assessment Project. Begun in June of 2001, this Trial Court TechnologyCommittee (TCTC) project culminated in a detailed strategic plan published inOctober of 2002. Through numerous planning sessions with court, county, stateattorney, public defender, sheriff, and clerk of the court representatives, the TCTC

also developed budgetary estimates, integration and interoperability requirements

and standards, and functional requirements for each of the courts’ major types of cases (criminal, civil, mental health, probate, etc.) The plans and requirements

were developed to meet the consensus needs of the judiciary, but would require

implementation costs and efforts by all of the other court system entities,including the counties. When published in 2002, the plan estimated that theinformation access and integration desired by the judiciary could be achieved over

an eight year period at a cost of $81.9 million above current court entity annual IT

expenditures statewide. The $81.9 million of new funding would be added to theredirected current annual expenditures of state entities and the counties to modify

systems and provide interfaces with the clerks, state attorneys, public defenders,

sheriffs, and court administrators. On April 8, 2003, the Supreme Court Chief Justice signed Administrative Order No. AOSC03-16 requiring each circuit courtand each clerk of the court to adhere to the IT requirements published by the

TCTC when implementing new systems or upgrades to existing systems, and to

submit the specifications for such changes to the Florida Courts Technology

Commission for approval. The order also directs each circuit court to submit acircuit strategic plan for technology to the Florida Courts Technology

Commission by October 1, 2003. (Those plans are currently under review by thecourts.) Since the publication of the TCTC plans and requirements in October of

2002, OSCA staff have indicated that the initial cost estimate may be reduced




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substantially if existing off-the-shelf software packages are purchased by countiesand state entities to meet the plan requirements. However, an official revised costestimate has not been adopted by the TCTC at this writing.

Obstacles to IntegrationBesides the diversity of systems, funding, ownership/control and business

processes, other cited obstacles to integration of court entity data include:

• Inadequate delineation of the goals and definition of the “integrated” system in

section 29.008, F.S.. Several of those interviewed indicated greater specificity isneeded in law as to the data elements to be integrated, the court system

participants that must be involved, and the functional requirements that must be

achieved. There is uncertainty as to whether integration requires the use of acommon computer system or application by all parties, or simply a mechanismfor efficiently sharing data electronically. The term “integration” can mean

different things to different people.

• Lack of standards and protocols for data element definitions, data transfer (e.g.,via extensible markup language, XML), and security. A state standard for digital

signature technology will be needed also.

• Lack of a common personal identifier to be used by all entities. Someinterviewees suggested the use of a biometric identifier based on fingerprints or

eye scans (although this would be impractical for civil and probate cases), whileothers felt that algorithms using person-specific data such as is used for a driver’s

license would suffice.

• Inadequate standard statute table for use in charging and recording dispositions.Many state attorney and public defender interviewees indicated that the FDLEstatute table lacks the level of subsection/subparagraph detail necessary for

accurate charging. Many state attorneys and public defenders maintain their own

statute table.

• Lack of a governance mechanism that can facilitate the needed cooperation of allthe constitutional officers, judicial officers, and counties.

• Insufficient data accuracy and timeliness. In some cases, entities are having to

correct data submitted by another entity before it can be used, and in some cases

data is simply not entered in an automated system soon enough after the event tomake the automated data useful to other entities.

• Difficulty and cost of changing proprietary applications, whether off-the-shelf or customized programs. Many applications have been purchased and licensedfrom private vendors. In-house programs are more easily modified than

applications restricted by licensing and changed only through cooperation of

private vendor programmers.

• Inadequate security mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access to data shared inan integrated system.

• Lack of funding.




Page 14

General Recommendations of Local IT PersonnelIn general, the vast majority of court system entity representatives recommended

that integration of court information should be approached in a manner that allows

local jurisdictions to maintain their existing systems and independent processes, but provides technological linkages between data systems. Integration is

perceived more as efficient data sharing than implementation of common systems

statewide. Furthermore, several circuit interviewees indicated that proposals tosegregate county versus state responsibilities for court system IT are not feasible

because the current technology today does not allow for clear distinctions between

communications services, for which counties are responsible for under Revision 7,

and computer processing.4

4 The definition of communication services in section 29.008, F.S., currently subsumes allcomputer processing and equipment.




Page 15

Conclusions and Recommendations

The major conclusions can be summarized as follows:

• Availability of information technology infrastructure in Florida’s court

system is widely diverse. Some entities or jurisdictions have up-to-datetechnology, but some are poorly equipped and not capable of participating

in significant integration strategies without acquiring better hardware andsoftware. There is currently no source of funding for such acquisitions.

• There are so many different applications and systems in use that

integration strategies requiring replacement of systems or developinghundreds of complex interfaces may be impractical due to the high costand disruption of the local court operations.

• State and local funding and control of IT systems are enmeshed and

diverse to such a degree that broad statewide integration mandates that

account for these differences will be difficult to craft. Different courtsystem entities across the circuits and counties may need to be responsible

for selected components of such mandates.

• Significant local efforts to share data and integrate systems have been

recently achieved or are being implemented in many jurisdictions.Statewide integration strategies that ignore these efforts may generateunnecessary costs, operational disruptions, and political opposition.

• More progress has been made to integrate information relating to criminal

cases than for civil and all other types of cases. State requirements that provide for integration of data for all types of court system cases will

require more work than for only criminal cases.

• The state’s requirements for IT integration found in section 29.008, F.S.,need clarification. Clarification needs to include some mechanisms for establishing standards, procedures, and governance for statewide and

intra-circuit IT integration.

In addition to these conclusions, it should be recognized that integrating the court

system entities’ IT data and systems in Florida is more complicated than in other

states due to two factors:• Florida is unique compared to other states in the number of independent

constitutional elected officers involved in the administration of the courtsystem. Many other states do not have elected clerks of court, state

attorneys and public defenders. Elected officials have certain prerogatives for structuring their business processes and for setting the priorities of their office in light of their constituents’ needs. Further, the

clerks of the court in Florida have both a responsibility to serve the courts

and a responsibility to provide for the needs of their local board of county

commissioners and citizens in their community.




Page 16

• Florida’s constitutional provisions governing the operations and funding

of the court system provide for both state and local requirements, among

which is the requirement that counties fund the cost of communicationsservices, existing radio systems, and existing multi-agency criminal

justice information systems. Implementation of that provision in generallaw defines all computer related services and supports as county

responsibilities. Developing practicable strategies and securing requisitefunding of statewide systems is made more difficult when 67 different

counties share the responsibility.

In light of the findings and conclusions presented in this report, and with particular consideration for the last two factors stated above, staff makes thefollowing recommendations for legislative action:

1. Create a permanent statewide board comprised of appointed representatives of

the counties, the clerks of the court, the courts, the state attorneys, the public

defenders, the sheriffs and the State Technology Office serving in an ex-officio

advisory capacity. The board should serve similar purposes for the JudicialBranch as the Criminal Justice Information Systems Council serves for the

Executive Branch (see section 943.08, F.S.). This board should be responsible for establishing for the court system: principles and requirements for minimal

horizontal integration within any given circuit, and for minimal verticalintegration across circuits and with state entities; standards and protocols needed

for integration; and strategies for achieving the statewide vertical integration.

Standards should be established by major type of case processed by the court

system (i.e., criminal, civil, juvenile, etc.). The data and operational needs of eachof the court system entities represented on the board should be addressed. The

board should consider technology solutions that link disparate systems using open

standards, data warehouse and middleware connectivity strategies, as well as

solutions that may require entities to use the same systems or applications. The board should make recommendations to the legislature for requirements and

standards that need to be specified in law.

2. Clarify statutory integration definitions and requirements after the Legislaturehas received recommendations from the statewide board. Integration of court

system IT should be addressed at two levels in the law: intra-circuit integration,

and statewide integration. Minimum requirements for horizontal intra-circuitintegration among the entities of a given jurisdiction should be established

separately from minimum vertical integration requirements across circuits andwith state level entities.

3. Create a permanent board in each judicial circuit comprised of representatives

from each of the counties in that circuit, the court, the state attorney, the public

defender, the sheriffs, and each of the clerks of the court in that circuit. The




Page 17

circuit board should be charged with developing and implementing the integrationsolutions to meet the minimum intra-circuit requirements established in law after recommendations by the state board and clarification by the legislature. Each

circuit board should be granted the discretion to develop technology solutions and

procedures which may be unique within that circuit or within each county in that

circuit, but which meet legislatively established general integration principles andspecific data exchange requirements.



Page 18

Appendixes



Appendix A – 17 th

Circuit/Broward County Site Visit

Page 19

Appendix A – 17th Circuit/Broward County Site Visit

Current Information Technology

The 17th Circuit/Broward County has several major information technology systems supporting the judicial

entities. Many of the current judicial information technology systems are expected to be revised with thecounty funding of an integration project currently underway. The major systems are listed below. Inaddition, the sheriff’s jail management system provides data on defendants arrested.

Exhibit 1: Major Information Technology Systems in 17th

Circuit

Entity Major System Description

Clerk

Juvenile, Criminal, Civil, Probate, and

Parking Case Maintenance Systems

A group of independent case

maintenance and database systems

Courts Case Management Systems

Mainframe systems and several data bases that provide case management

data in a variety of areas.

State Attorney Case Management Systems

Related data bases for criminal cases,

juvenile cases, investigations, evidence

destruction, score sheet application, andcourt costs

Public Defender STAC Case management system

Clerk Case Maintenance SystemsThe clerk of the court uses several systems to support his function. The systems primarily run on the

county mainframe. The systems include: the Criminal Case Maintenance System, the Civil CaseMaintenance System, the Probate and Mental Health, the Quest System for juvenile cases, parking, and

revenue collection.

Court Case Management SystemsThe court administrator’s office operates several data bases to provide case type information to its users.The initial case data is entered manually by court staff from the case files provided by the clerk of the

court. Other data is collected and entered by court staff from the parties involved in the cases. Much of the

data collected supports the case management practices of the judges and are not available from the clerk files.

State Attorney Case Management Systems

The state attorney’s office has developed a case management system in house to meet their needs. The case

data is received from the clerk of the court for those defendants booked in the jail. For those defendants

that are not in custody, the state attorney’s office inputs the data to begin the case file. The case

management system serves the state attorney staff through out the judicial process and captures dispositiondata. This allows the case management system to be used as a data base to find out information for repeat

offenders, as well as meeting the office’s management and reporting needs.





Page 20

Public Defender STACThe public defender in the 17th Circuit uses the STAC program, a proprietary software application, to meet

their case management needs. The application has been modified since its initial instillation to meet the

needs of the public defender’s office. Data is manually entered off the arrest forms from local law

enforcement. Additional case information, such as the charges, the witnesses, and disposition is added tothe STAC program. Assistant public defenders as well as administrative staff use the STAC program to

manage their workloads. In addition to keeping case files, the STAC program also generates the necessarylegal documents for the public defender.

Information Technology Integration

There is little electronic information sharing at this time in the 17th

Circuit. With the exception of the booking data entered in the Sheriff’s jail management system and the data from defendants “Not-In-

Custody” that is entered by the state attorney, most data is manually input into the systems used by the

court entities. Hard copy information is shared among the entities as needed. Some more minor functions

such as data to facilitate the transport of prisoners, data on defensive driving schools, and accountsreceivable are transmitted electronically by the clerk. See Exhibit 2 for more information on the flow of case information within the 17th Circuit.

Exhibit 2: Flow of Case Information in the 17th

Circuit Entity Major Business Process Flow of Case Information

Clerk Case maintenance

Broward County Sheriff’s Office – manually input into – Jail Management System – electronic transfer to –

Clerk of Court case maintenance system

Court Case management

Clerk case files - manually input into – court case

management data bases

State

Attorney Case management

Clerk criminal case files - electronic transfer to – state

attorney case management system

PublicDefender Case management

Clerk criminal case files - manually input into – publicdefender case management system

Future Information Technology Integration

With funding from Broward County, the court and clerk have initiated a project entitled BrEx to create adatabase to be used by all local justice agencies to centrally store, share and exchange data. This is a joint

effort between the clerk, the court, the sheriff, the state attorney and the public defender. The clerk of thecourt expects to replace their existing case maintenance systems with a single, unified relational data base

to support the maintenance and management of judicial cases. The courts will develop the Court BusinessApplications that will feed data to the clerk’s database.

Multiple data bases and case management systems will be combined and will be able to receive and

exchange information through the BrEx project. Such an effort will better support the Supreme Court





Page 21

initiative of Family Court, where all the cases for a family are consolidated. This cannot be easily donewith separate case maintenance and management systems and data bases among the different court entities.The BrEx project is expected to improve the access to information by incorporating browser-based

components. The system will integrate imaged documents and other document management systems with

the case file. The real time electronic transfer of information among entities will eventually be possible

under the BrEx system. Finally, the project will allow easier extraction of court information from the 17th Circuit.





Appendix B – 11th

Circuit/Miami-Dade Site Visit

Page 23

Appendix B – 11th Circuit/Miami-Dade Site Visit


The 11th Circuit has several major information systems that support both the judicial and criminal justice

entities. The county is the primary owner and operator of the integrated systems. In addition, entities withinthe court system, such as the state attorney and public defender maintain systems to support their casemanagement needs. See exhibit 1 below for a list of the major information technology systems in Miami-

Dade County.


Circuit


CountyCriminal Justice Information System(CJIS)

Mainframe information system for judicial and criminal justice functions

County, Clerk and

Court Traffic Information System (TIS)

Mainframe information system for civil

traffic infractions

County, Clerk and

Court

Simultaneous Paperless Image Retrieval

Information Technology (SPIRIT)

System to image and store documents for

use by the court and the clerk

Clerk and Court Civil/Family/Probate (CIVA) Docketing system for civil division

State Attorney Hydra Case management system

Public Defender Electronic Case File Case management system

Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS)

Miami-Dade County established the CJIS in 1992. The county owns and maintains the mainframeapplication that was developed in house. It has since been modified to keep up with the needs of the users.CJIS is the official data base of criminal justice information and supports multiple agencies, such as law

enforcement, the courts, the county corrections department, the state attorney, the public defender, theclerk, the probation program, and the Department of Children and Families. There are multiple owners or

custodians of the data. For adults, data is entered into CJIS by the police department at booking (there is no

sheriff in Miami-Dade County). Information on defendants not booked into jail is entered into the system

by the clerk and the system produces the notices to appear. For juveniles, the Juvenile Assessment Center enters booking information. Later, the case number, judicial division, first appearance, online calendar,

arraignment notices and other information is entered into CJIS, primarily by the clerk. The systeminterfaces electronically to several external systems, such as those used by the courts, the state attorney and

the public defender. It also produces required state reports, such as the criminal justice Offender BasedTracking System (OBTS) and state court Summary Reporting System (SRS).

Traffic Information System (TIS) and the Simultaneous Paperless Image Retrieval Information Technology(SPIRIT)In an effort to improve the flow of work in traffic, the clerk found that paper files were touched 37 times.

The clerk partnered with a private company to develop a paperless court process, called Simultaneous

Paperless Image Retrieval Information Technology (SPIRIT) at a cost of approximately $18 million. Case

management data is housed in the Traffic Information System (TIS) and is associated by case number to



Appendix B – 11th


Page 24

scanned images of all the associated documents. SPIRIT schedules the cases for court sessions anddownloads the necessary images from the case into the court room. The judge uses the SPIRIT program toreview the file in court and enters the order electronically for disposition. The defendant receives their

appropriate court papers to sign and can pay any fines and charges at that time. The program benefits

customers outside of the court room as well. Clerk counter employees can access all the relevant files and

case information so customers can pay all the fines and costs associated with their case(s).

Civil/Family/Probate (CIVA)The CIVA system is the major system for civil cases other than traffic in the 11th circuit. The system runson the county mainframe and is used by the clerk and the court administrator. The court uses the CIVA

system as a data base--extracting data for use in its case management systems.

Hydra – State AttorneyThe state attorney’s office developed its own case management system for felony and juvenile cases called

Hydra (the state attorney uses CJIS for misdemeanor cases). CJIS electronically supplies Hydra with felonyand juvenile case specific data that the state attorney uses to prepare a case for arraignment. The state

attorney adds additional data to the case file such as what crimes the defendant is charged with violating.This new data is sent back to CJIS to keep it up to date. Hydra produces the state attorney’s necessary

legal documents, such as charging documents and warrants, and allows for reporting of management data.

Once the defendant is arraigned, the state attorney uses CJIS for case management.

Electronic Case File – Public Defender In order to improve access to the case file, the public defender’s office developed its own case

management system. Like the state attorney’s system, the public defender obtains case data electronically

from CJIS. The Electronic Case File produces the necessary legal documents for the attorneys in the officeand allows for reporting of management data. The public defender uses the Electronic Case File

throughout the case process and maintains a history of cases. This is important as many current defendants

have been served by the public defender in the past.


The main information system supporting criminal cases, the county CJIS, is well integrated with all major entities in the judicial system in the 11 th circuit. Local law enforcement generates data on arrested

individuals that is then stored in CJIS and available for other users. The clerk adds data to CJIS such asdocketing the court events and the disposition of the charges. Both the state attorney and public defender

depend on data from CJIS. In the case of the state attorney, she provides the charging information to theclerk to be entered into CJIS. The court relies on CJIS as a database, extracting data for its purposes and

creating data marts.

While the CJIS database provided integration within the clerk’s applications, the structure of the supportingdatabase prevented easy integration with the state attorney and public defender’s case management systems.

Specifically, the use of a hierarchal database design in CJIS prevented the creation of direct database interfaces

to these case management systems. File transfers between these systems used the older techniques of

transferring files between each system periodically and then converting the files to a format matching the



Appendix B – 11th


Page 25

receiving database before data integration. The court administrator created a relational database, populated bythe CJIS database, to circumvent these limitations and allow the easier creation of ad-hoc reports in addition tosupplementary court uses. Other entities within the circuit maintained access to the court’s database but this

database was only updated two times a day from CJIS reducing its value to these entities. In addition, the

court’s database did not always contain data required for the business processes of the state attorney and public

defender.

With some exceptions, the civil system in the 11th circuit is less integrated than the criminal system. Thecourt extracts data for civil cases from CIVA for case management purposes. Two areas where integrationoccurs in civil cases are traffic infractions and unified family court. The traffic divisions are supported by

both a mainframe database (TIS) and an image based system (SPIRIT) that is fully integrated with the

work of the judges in the court room. Judges in traffic court use the SPIRIT system to review the records

electronically and to write their judicial orders. For unified family court, the court system has begunintegration by checking various case management systems each night to determine all the cases for families

that have several matters before the court. The cases are then combined to allow a more efficient andholistic approach to case management. See Exhibit 2 below for the flow of case information among the

judicial entities in the 11th

circuit.

Exhibit 2: Flow of Information in the 11th

Circuit

Entity

Major Business

Process Flow of Case Information

Clerk Case maintenanceJail or clerk - manually input into - case maintenance systems(CJIS, TIS, & SPRIRIT)

Criminal case

management

county criminal justice information system (CJIS) - electronic

transfer to - court data marts - electronic transfer and manual input

into - court case management systems

Civil (non-traffic)

case management

Clerk - manually input into - civil case management system

(CIVA) - electronic transfer to -court data marts - electronic

transfer and manual input into - court case management systems

CourtCivil (traffic)

case management

Clerk - manually input into - traffic case management system (TIS)and imaging system (SPIRIT) - electronic transfer to -court

calendar and court room

State AttorneyCasemanagement


transfer and manual input into - state attorney case managementsystem (Hydra)

Public Defender Casemanagement


transfer and manual input into - public defender case managementsystem (Electronic Case File)


The court’s information technology needs are greater in the civil area than the criminal. Consequently,

plans are underway to improve the civil information technology system in Miami-Dade County. The courtand the clerk are currently redesigning internal business processes for civil cases. They will then develop a



Appendix B – 11th


Page 26

new case management system over the next 2 years that is expected to be paperless. Improvements in the jury processing systems will be needed as well.

The state attorney expects to expand the Hydra case management system to cover all of its divisions and to

serve the entire case process from arrest through disposition. Once the state attorney’s case management

system is expanded, it could automate sentencing score sheets. Sentencing score sheets are the documentthat incorporates the defendant’s prior arrests and convictions with the current charges to develop the

recommended sentence. Such documents are currently done manually.

The public defender has no major plans to expand information systems, but could however, benefit from

improved integration in several areas. The public defender would benefit from improved information on

the disposition of cases. Currently, the public defender’s attorneys must check what they heard in court

with what is documented in the judicial order received sometime later in hard copy form. This is important because mistakes in sentencing can be appealed. Such problems could be found earlier if dispositions were

available electronically in a timely fashion. Booking photos of defendants from the jail as well as discoveryfrom the state attorney are needed electronically by the public defender. Electronic sentencing score sheets

would also help the work of the public defender.

In addition, the attorneys in the public defender’s office would benefit from improved access to state

agency databases. They currently rely on hard copies of the records of juvenile defendants from theDepartment of Juvenile Justice. The public defender does not receive criminal history information ondefendants from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement timely or in an electronic format. Instead,they must pay a fee and make a written request to the state attorney for a background check, or review such

material when shared in the discovery process. The public defender needs information on violations of

probation from the Department of Corrections. Now the office doesn’t get evidence of such violations untilthe defendant is booked in jail. From the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, the public

defender would like to be able to print the driving record data.



Appendix C – 13th

Circuit/Hillsborough County Site Visit

Page 27

Appendix C – 13th Circuit/Hillsborough County Site Visit


The 13th Circuit has several major information systems that support both the judicial and criminal justice

entities. The county is the primary owner of the integrated systems with the clerk maintaining data processingequipment and application support. In addition, entities within the court system, such as the state attorney and

public defender maintained systems and networks to support their case management needs. See Exhibit 1

below for a list of the major information technology systems in Hillsborough County.


Circuit


County

Banner Criminal Justice Information

System (CJIS)

Distributed computing information system for felony, misdemeanor, and juvenile functions(probate and civil justice in process of

deployment)

County Mediation Diversion ApplicationDistributed computing information system for court mediation efforts

Public Defender STAC Case management system

State Attorney CMS.net Case management system

County Data Exchange Server Information warehouse for selected court datafrom CJIS

Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS)

In the late 1990’s, the agencies within the circuit developed a strategy to replace the existing mainframe based

Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) with a product supporting a distributed computing environment.The procurement process resulted in the choice of the Banner Justice Information System with management of the system delegated to the Clerk’s office. The county provided funding for the purchase of the software in

addition to the data processing equipment needed to run the system. The Banner system represented an

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) style solution supported by an Oracle relational database. Selection of this product corresponded to a desire to create user friendly business systems within the circuit while

improving the capabilities of sharing data to the supporting agencies. The Banner system provided the circuit

the ability to roll out different modules to process court transactions as budget conditions allowed. Principalmodules in the system included civil, criminal, juvenile, and traffic. The initial module, deployed in 2000,supported the criminal court processes with the additional juvenile module added after the rollout of the

criminal module. System A, a legacy application, maintained civil court activities and will continue to process

criminal traffic information. The Clerk’s office planned to deploy the civil and probate case modules

beginning in November 2003. The CJIS serves as the case management system for the courts administrator.Other circuit entities use CJIS for case research and data extraction for their case management systems. The

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) provided data to the CJIS through a data sharing agreement

among the court entities. Many court business processes in the 13th circuit continue to be paper based requiring

manual entry and verification in CJIS.



Appendix C – 13th


Page 28

Mediation Diversion ApplicationThe court administrator is in the process of deploying a distributed computing system mediation diversionapplication to replace a legacy system. Under the legacy mediation system, many of the functions required

manual entry of data. Specifically, data transferred from the CJIS to the legacy mediation system required

manually reentering data. The new mediation application includes a graphical user interface (GUI) application

supported by a relational database to maintain information. Features of the new application include the abilityto electronically transfer data between the mediation database and CJIS upon the addition of the civil

component in CJIS. Business process improvements include reduce search times for mediation data andautomation of functions previously requiring manual actions.

CMS.net

CMS.net is an internally developed and supported case management application used to support the

functionality and data structures of all state attorney business functions. Office IT staff maintain theapplication and are responsible for programming changes into the system. The structure of this application

allows any personal computer with a Web browser access if the State Attorney’s security manager grants a user access rights. Data for the application flows from the circuit’s Data Exchange and from a direct link to the

Sheriff’s Jail Management System. Intake Clerks review booking material and accept cases into CMS.net for processing on a daily basis. Accepted cases have paper files created from the electronic information in

CMS.net for use by attorneys in the office. Further processing includes manual entry of data into the system

from court sources as the case proceeds through the system.

STACThe Public Defender purchased the STAC application and database system for its case management system.

Staff within the Public Defenders office maintain the application on IT equipment within their office. Since

the STAC application is proprietary, programming changes were contracted out to the vendor for completion.Such programming changes include altering the preprogrammed business functions to meet special needs in

the 13th circuit. STAC receives criminal case information from an electronic interface from the circuit’s Data

Exchange database. Additional case information, from entities within the circuit, originated from E-mail,FAX, and hard copy documents that were manually entered into the system.

Banner Data Exchange Server

To facilitate electronic ad-hoc report requirements and data sharing, the entities within the circuit created a datamart containing CJIS data. Each entity owns its respective portion of the system and each entity managed their

data contributed to the database. Running a batch program to extract data nightly, select data from tables

within the CJIS database are transferred into the Data Exchange maintained on a relational database server.Benefits include the entities ability to use specialized report generator programs to create customized reportsfrom this data. Additional benefits from using a report generation program include the reduction of special

programming by the vendor of the CJIS or clerk programming staff to produce these reports. Further

enhancements to circuit integration include facilitating the electronic transfer of data between entities. This

process allows the automating of certain data transfers between entities previously handled with manual dataentry procedures or batch file transfers. Circuit entities continue to use FTP file transfer methods to transport

data between entities when that data is not maintained in CJIS.



Appendix C – 13th


Page 29


The circuit’s use of a CJIS, supporting a relational database, provides entities with the integration benefits of

an open standards database. Open standards set industry defined methods for communicating with the

database allowing applications from multiple vendors, who use open standards for database communications intheir product, to interact with the CJIS database server. This eliminates the need to purchase and support

special proprietary interface programs to gain access to the centralized database and decreases integration

expenses. While the applications supported in CJIS provide business process support for most clerk and court

administration functions, the special needs of the state attorney and public defender required each of thoseentities to develop or purchase case management systems. To facilitate information sharing between circuit

entities, the circuit developed Data Exchange databases for processing inbound and outbound records. TheData Exchange process allowed all entities access to selected data maintained in each agency’s database server

through secure network interfaces. A circuit CJIS council, containing representatives from all entities, selectedspecific data elements they felt essential in ad-hoc report creation or in feeding data to their respective case

management systems. A CJIS User and Steering Committee meets on a periodic basis to review data elements

for inclusion or deletion from the Data Exchange in addition to reviewing integration issues.

The state attorney maintained a vendor supported Video Evidence Management System (VEMS) to integratethe management of video evidence. Video evidence includes video capture of traffic stops by patrol officers

and deputies. VEMS allowed the state attorney to manage and distribute video evidence directly to thecourtrooms for case use or for distribution under public disclosure laws. Content for the system originates atthe HCSO where video tapes are digitized and sent over network connections to the state attorney. VEMS

catalogs each digitized event and stores the material on a special multimedia server system. During court

proceedings, the attorneys have access to the system in the courtrooms with the ability to search and displaycontent on monitors in the courtroom. Attorneys and support staff also have access to material over the stateattorney’s Intranet or Internet connections.

See Exhibit 2 below for the flow of case information among the judicial entities in the 13th

circuit.

Exhibit 2: Flow of Information in the 13th Circuit

Entity

Major Business

Process Flow of Information


Jail or clerk - manually input and electronic transfer into - case

maintenance systems (CJIS)

Court

Mediation

DiversionApplication

county criminal justice information system (CJIS) and court – manual

and electronic transfer into – mediation diversion application

State Attorney Case management


transfer into and manual input into- state attorney case management

system (CMS.net)

Public Defender Case management


transfer and manual input into - public defender case managementsystem (STAC)



Appendix C – 13th


Page 30


Further enhancements in the 13th circuit included the incorporation of the civil and probate modules in the

CJIS. The inclusion of the civil and probate modules will automate many of the manual procedures now

performed in these proceedings. Maintaining this data in the CJIS should facilitate the electronic transfer thisdata to the Data Exchange and ultimately to circuit entities.

As part of an upgrade process to the Jail Management System, the sheriff will expand the transfer of

information in real-time to various agencies connected on the CJIS data sharing network. This informationtransfer at the present time consists of jail booking information. The sheriff is in the process of acquiring a new

computer aided dispatch and records management system that will electronically capture offense report data,criminal report affidavit information, and other case related information. The plan is to transfer this information

real-time to the various justice agencies as soon as it is captured electronically. The new system should alsohandle the electronic transfer of subpoena information for the issuing agencies and eliminate the paper

handling of these documents.

The court administrator, public defender, and state attorney all expressed a desire for greater integration withthe various State law enforcement databases. Similar to the public defender in the 11th circuit, the process of obtaining criminal history records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) requires manual

procedures that can delay the process of obtaining these documents by several weeks. Further integrationissues for the public defender included the lack of electronic connections to select Department of JuvenileJustice (DJJ), Department of Corrections (DOC), and Department of Children and Families (DCF) databases.

The court administrator cited limited connections to FDLE and DOC and no network connections to DCF and

DJJ as statewide network integration issues.

Ultimately the integration of major business processes in the 13 th circuit rests with the degree of automation of

court business processes. The greater the use of paper documents in the business processes of the circuit, the

more difficult the task of integrating these processes in an electronic data processing system. All entities in thecircuit understand this issue and continue to work to improve integration as budgets and acceptance by court

participants allows.



Appendix D – 9th

Circuit/Orange County Site Visit

Page 31

Appendix D – 9th Circuit/Orange County Site Visit


The 9th Circuit makes use of a variety of information technologies. The interim project team did not visit

the Clerk of Circuit Court in Osceola County therefore references to the clerk’s information technologysystems relate only to those in Orange County. Case management systems are maintained by all the major entities in the judicial system. Currently there is little integration between these systems in terms of

electronic data sharing. The major systems are listed below.


Circuit (Orange County)


Clerk

Criminal and Civil Case Maintenance

Systems

Integrated case maintenance systems for criminal, civil, probate and mentalhealth, family, juvenile, and traffic

cases

Court Video and Audio Court Room Systems

Systems to support video court services

and digital audio court reporting

State Attorney PublicDefender Case Management System

Case management system serving bothstate attorney and public defender

Clerk Criminal & Civil Case Maintenance Systems

In Orange County, the clerk has recently implemented a new case maintenance system for criminal, civil,

probate and mental health, family, juvenile, and traffic cases. All cases can be queried by name or casenumber. This system is integrated with the clerk’s imaging system. The clerk’s office in Osceola County

operates paperless for both criminal and civil cases. This was achieved with the implementation of animaged-based case file system.

Court Video and Audio Court Room Systems Court

The court uses the clerk’s system for inquiry access, but relies on their own case management systems.

The court has made major investments in the use of video and audio court reporting. Video systems are run

by the court to allow video arraignments with the jails and to show video evidence during trials. In

addition, the court has replaced staff court reporters with digital audio court reporting. They record andstore such audio centrally and these recordings are transcribed as needed.

State Attorney and Public Defender Case Management SystemThe state attorney and public defender share a data center and case management system. The state

attorney’s office, with input from the public defender, developed the case management system in house.

Initial data is retrieved electronically from booking records entered by the two sheriffs in the 9th

Circuit.The case management system also allows the state attorney to share other information, such as discovery,with the public defender electronically. The state attorney’s office has developed a web based interface for

the case management system to allow easier use. Disposition data is entered into the case management

system by the state attorney. The offices estimate that sharing the server and case management application



Appendix D – 9th


Page 32

has saved the state approximately $150,000.


There is limited information technology integration in the 9th

Circuit. Most systems are independent of each other and most data is input manually with the exception of the case management system of the state

attorney and public defender. Their system receives data electronically from the sheriffs of Orange and

Osceola Counties and the county-run jail in Orange County. See Exhibit 2 below for the flow of case

information among the judicial entities in the 9th

circuit.

Exhibit 2: Flow of Information in the 9th

Circuit Entity Major Business Process Flow of Case Information


Law enforcement and clerk - manually input into -

case maintenance system

Criminal case management clerk – manually input into - case management systems

Court Civil case management clerk – manually input into - case management systems

State

Attorney Case management

Law enforcement - electronic transfer to - case

management system

PublicDefender Case management Law enforcement - electronic transfer to - casemanagement system


Orange County, within the 9th

circuit, is developing a major information technology integration projectcalled the Integrated Criminal Justice Information System (ICJIS). This system will make use of a data hub

and specialized software, known as “middleware,” to connect existing data systems in the criminal justice

system. The system will rely on law enforcement officers to input information for the arrest record on their

lap tops in their squad cars. The information will be sent via a wireless connection to the central data hubwhere a case number established by the clerk will be added to the file. The data will also be sent to the jail,

where the information will be reviewed when the defendant is booked. The data will then be available to

the clerk, the court, the state attorney and public defender. Implementation of the CJIS system will take 2-5

years and is currently being piloted with 15 police officers. All the local law enforcement officers inOrange County have laptops in their cars. The county has funded $8 million for the middleware and

imaging for ICJIS.

In addition to the changes for ICJIS, the clerk continues to implement processes that will enhance dataintegration. Traffic citation data is available and can be transmitted to the case maintenance system. Some

entities, such as the turnpike authority, will be able to send their data on tickets electronically to the clerk

system. For others, the clerk will scan the ticket and clerk staff will enter the data from the scanned image.

The court and clerk will use this system in traffic court, similar to what is done in Miami-Dade Countywith the SPRIRIT system. These and other changes will also allow the clerk to accept electronic filing in

the next year.



Appendix D – 9th


Page 33

The court expressed the need for better case management information. The courts need a case managementsystem with “tickler” features to remind users of certain events, with the ability to track event milestones,statistics, and the ability to sort cases by their level of activity in order to get the slower cases moving.

The state attorney and public defender will benefit from implementation of ICJIS. The public defender

would also benefit from better access to information from law enforcement. In addition, the publicdefender would benefit from better access to statewide databases, such as those maintained by the Florida

Department of Law Enforcement, Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the Department of JuvenileJustice.





Appendix E – Glossary of Selected IT Terms

Page 35


Database

A database is a collection of interrelated data supplied to one or more computer applications. Databases can

vary in the way data is stored and accessed. During our field trip, we noted the following variations in

database design:

Relational Database

A relational database is a collection of data items organized as a set of formally-described tables fromwhich data can be accessed or reassembled in many different ways without having to reorganize thedatabase tables. Most relational database vendors utilize open standards (see definition below) for

communicating with the database. The open standard design removes the restriction of being tied to a

specific vendor’s application. Additionally, a relational database design allows multiple users and

applications to access the database concurrently. Current relational databases include Microsoft’sSQL Server, Oracle’s 9i database, and IBM’s DB2. During our fieldwork, we noted the 13th

circuit/Hillsborough County utilized an Oracle relational database to support their CJIS. Other circuitsutilized relational databases to support data marts for reporting purposes.

Hierarchical Database

A hierarchical database links records together like a family tree such that each record type has only

one owner, e.g. a case record is owned by only one customer or application. Hierarchical structures

were widely used in early mainframe database management systems. However, due to restrictions onhow the data may be accessed, they often cannot be utilized by applications not specifically written for the database. (Proprietary database interfaces are needed.) The 11th Circuit uses a hierarchical

database to support its CJIS resulting in limitations in data sharing among agencies. For example, the public defender used a screen scraping program (see definition below) to extract data from the CJIS

database to populate their case management program, due to the complexities posed by the

hierarchical database restricting direct access to this data.

Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) Data Sets

VSAM is a legacy file access system developed in the 1970’s primary for mainframe computer

operations. VSAM data sets allowed an enterprise to create and access records in a file in the

sequential order that they were entered. Unlike a relational database were data items are linkedallowing easy access, VSAM data sets are unique to each application they support. Therefore there

may be multiple VSAM data sets with a first name and last name data field. In a relational database,

there may be a one master data set with a first and last name field and a virtually unlimited number of sub datasets linking back to the master record for the name fields. Thus, duplication of data fields isreduced in a relational database environment as apposed to the VSAM environment. During our

fieldwork, we noted the 17th Circuit continues to use VSAM data sets for their CJIS.




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Database Update Procedures

There are three procedures used to update database items:

Batch

A batch job is a program that is created to automatically be executed, usually at prescribed times, by

the computer to run without further user interaction. In a database environment, a computer operator would create a batch job and set it to run at 12 am to initiate a program to copy data from the CJIS and

transfer it to a data mart created by the agencies within a circuit. If data does not need to be current for decision making purposes, this is an acceptable method of data transfer. Examples of the use of batch

jobs in a judicial setting include the proposed BREX data mart in the 17th circuit and the data mart

used in the 13th circuit maintained by the courts administrator.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

FTP is a method used to transfer files between users via the Internet or within an entities Intranet.

FTP can be programmed as a batch job or initiated by direct interaction from a user.

Real Time

In a real time data transfer system, data is transferred as a transaction occurs within the application

feeding data to the supporting database. For judicial systems, an example would include the

immediate updating of a CJIS database with information of an arrest as the local CJIS receives thisinformation from a sheriff’s jail management system. This is in contrast to a batch update of the CJISdatabase were the jail data could take up to 24 hours to appear in the database. Middleware is oftenused to extract continuous real time data changes via bi-directional communications with attached

databases.

Data Mart

To circumvent the data sharing limitations of certain database structures such as Hierarchical and VSAM

structures used in some CJISs, agencies are creating data marts. A data mart is usually a relational databasestructure, maintained on an agency’s computer system, containing downloads of select CJIS data. Downloadsto the data mart may occur as transactions are posted to the CJIS in a “real time” mode or through scheduled

downloads enacted periodically in “batch mode”. A data mart allows the agency’s users the ability to run

reports or process data without the limitations imposed by the CJIS’s database structure. Agency users can alsoutilize the data mart freely without worrying about slowing down day-to-day operations of the production

database used to service the CJIS applications. This is due to the fact the data mart runs on the agency’s

computers and storage devices rather than on the county or clerk’s system. Agencies employ programsspecifically developed to pull data from the data mart and create ad-hoc reports. We observed data marts beingdeployed or in the process of being deployed in the 9 th, 11th, 13th, and 17th circuits. The Comprehensive Case

Information System (CCIS) supported by the Florida Association of Court Clerks and Comptrollers, Inc. was

built on a data mart architecture. Data marts may be created using the following methods:

ETML (Extract, Transform, Move, Load), aka ETL

ETML is a batch process used to update a data mart. ETML represents:

• Extract volumes of data from operational databases such as VSAM, Oracle, DB2, or Microsoft’s SQL Server.




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• Transform the operational data types and data structures into a useful format for query andanalysis. The transformation process converts legacy data types and data structures into

relational formats to allow easier sharing of data.

• Move the data to the data warehouse environment over an local network (BREX in the 17th

circuit) or by a Statewide network (CCIS).

• Load the data collected into the data mart.

Operational Data Stores (ODSs)

A type of real time data mart reflects data currency within seconds or minutes of a transactionoccurring at a remote data collection site. Prior to sending data to the data mart, any legacy data types

or data structures must be transformed into a format compatible with the data mart. In the 17th circuit,there are plans to upgrade the BREX data mart into the ODS format through the use of middleware.

The 9th

circuit had deployed an ODS using middleware as a communication software solution betweencircuit entities.

Distributed Computing

A distributed computer system is a computer system in which several interconnected computers (servers) sharethe computing tasks assigned to the system. Usually, this employs the client/server form of communications

between devices. A typical distributed computing architecture includes servers maintaining the application,

servers holding the data bases, and a personal computer used to run the application. During our site visits, wenoted the 13

thcircuit in Hillsborough ran their CJIS on a distributed computing platform. This is opposed to

mainframe computing where a central box provides the processing functions to process applications and access

data bases that reside on storage devices attached to the mainframe. Circuits using a mainframe architecture

for their criminal justice information systems included the 17th

in Broward, the 11th

in Miami-Dade, and the10th in Orlando.

Middleware

Middleware is software used to connect two or more separate applications or databases. The software acts as

a director of data traffic between multiple databases in court technology deployments. For example, in the 17th circuit, middleware will be used to connect all entities to a data mart allowing real-time and bi-directional




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interaction with the data mart.

Open Standards

In the court system, the use of open standards for databases allows agencies within a circuit to develop or

purchase case management programs made by a large selection of vendors that can easily interface with a

central database maintained by the Clerk. In the past there were proprietary (the opposite of open standards)database architectures, such as IBM’s VSAM (still used in the 17 th circuit) that require special interfaces to

access the data. Often the owner of the proprietary interface controls it, including when and how the interfacechanges, who can adopt it, and how it is to be adopted, creating a vendor dependency for applications. The17th circuit is building BREX on an open standards database (Oracle) to facilitate the sharing of data and

bypass the proprietary nature of the Clerk’s VSAM database files. On the other side, the Clerk in Hillsborough

used the Oracle database structure with the Banner application allowing other circuit agencies to use

applications based on open standard interfaces to move data between databases or query the Clerk’s database.The greatest benefit may be the fact that open standards allow the use of multiple vendors to supply

applications and the databases that support these applications. The state attorney in the 13th circuit/Hillsborough County also showed that it is also possible to bypass vendors and internally develop an

application to work with a database built on open standards.

Screen Scraping

Screen scraping is used to capture data from legacy applications (like a circuit’s CJIS) to populate a databasesupporting a case management system without actually pulling the information directly from the legacydatabase. The scraper acts like an automated cut and paste tool used in a word processing program such asMicrosoft’s Word. A programmer maps each data field in the legacy application’s page, or pages they have

access to. The programmer then develops routines to copy these fields for pasting the captured fields into the

document within a program (like a case management system). In the 11th

circuit, the hierarchical databasestructure used for CJIS did not allow a client/server application (the public defenders case management system)

to easily access the CJIS database directly to extract needed information. To compensate for the inability to

directly extract data from the CJIS database, the public defender developed a screen scraping program thatworks within their case management system to populate a form with CJIS information by the user activation of the screen scraper. The program accesses multiple screens within CJIS to copy and paste the information into

the case management system form. It is important to note this process does not involve extracting data directly

from the source database (CJIS). Problems with this system can occur if pages are modified in CJIS to addnew data fields or change the lengths of data fields for a particular screen. If the screen scraper program is not

adjusted to compensate for changes in CJIS pages, the scraper will copy and paste incorrect or truncated data

into the case management system.

Structured Query Language (SQL)

SQL is a standard programming language for getting information from and updating a database

Documents

Implementation of an Integrated Computer System for the State Court System 2004-104aavlong